The Pagan Lord

Ten

‘Will Cnut go home?’ my son asked as we rode south through beech woods and beside a small, fast-flowing stream.

‘Not till he’s finished in Mercia,’ I said, ‘and maybe not then. He’d like to capture Wessex too.’

My son twisted in his saddle to look at Frigg. ‘But you’ll return her to him if he does go home? So he might?’

‘Don’t be a fool,’ I said. ‘We know he’s fond of her, but he wouldn’t walk ten paces to save her life.’

My son laughed in disbelief. ‘I’d walk halfway round the world for her,’ he said.

‘That’s because you’re an idiot. Cnut isn’t. He wants Mercia, he wants East Anglia, he wants Wessex, and those places are full of women, some of them almost as pretty as Frigg.’

‘But …’

‘I’ve touched his pride,’ I interrupted him. ‘She’s not really a hostage because Cnut won’t give a rat’s turd to save her. He might lift a finger to rescue his son, but his woman? That’s not why he’ll hunt me. He’ll hunt me because his pride is hurt. I’ve made him look like a fool and he won’t abide that. He’ll come.’

‘With four thousand men?’

‘With four thousand men,’ I said flatly.

‘Or he might ignore you,’ my son suggested. ‘You said yourself that Mercia is a bigger prize.’

‘He’ll come,’ I said again.

‘How can you be so certain?’

‘Because,’ I said, ‘Cnut is like me. He’s just like me. He’s proud.’

My son rode in silence for a few paces, then gave me a stern look. ‘Pride is a sin, Father,’ he said in an unctuous voice, imitating a priest.

I had to laugh. ‘You earsling!’ I said.

‘They do tell us that,’ he said, serious now.

‘The priests?’ I asked. ‘Do you remember Offa?’

‘The dog man?’

‘That one.’

‘I liked his dogs,’ Uhtred said. Offa had been a failed priest who travelled throughout Britain with a pack of trained dogs that performed tricks, though the dogs were merely his way of gaining acceptance in any lord’s hall, and once in the hall he listened carefully. He was a clever man and he learned things. Offa had always known what was being plotted, who hated whom and who pretended otherwise, and he sold that information. He had betrayed me in the end, but I missed his knowledge.

‘The priests are like Offa,’ I said. ‘They want us to be their dogs, well schooled, grateful and obedient, and why? So they can get rich. They tell you pride is a sin? You’re a man! It’s like telling you breathing is a sin, and once they’ve made you feel guilty for daring to breathe they’ll give you absolution in return for a handful of silver.’ I ducked my head under a low branch. We were following a wooded track that led south beside the fast-running stream. It was raining again, but not hard. ‘The priests never minded my pride when the Danes were burning their churches,’ I went on, ‘but the moment they thought there was peace, that no more churches would be destroyed, then they turned against me. You watch. A week from now the priests will be licking my backside and begging me to save them.’

‘And you will,’ Uhtred said.

‘Fool that I am,’ I said gloomily, ‘I will.’

We were in familiar ground because for years we had sent large bands of men to watch the Danes in Ceaster. All of northern Mercia was under Danish rule, but here, in the western part where we rode, the land was constantly threatened by the wild Welsh tribesmen and it was hard to say who truly controlled the land. Jarl Cnut claimed the lordship, but he was too sensible to make enemies of the Welsh, who fought like fiends and could always retreat into their mountains if they were outnumbered. Æthelred claimed the land too, and he had offered silver to any Mercian willing to build a homestead in this contested place, but he had done nothing to protect those settlers. He had never built a burh this far north, and he had been reluctant to capture Ceaster because both the Danes and the Welsh would see such a capture as a threat. The last thing Æthelred had wanted was to provoke a war against Mercia’s two most fearsome enemies, and so he had been content just to watch Ceaster. Now he had his war against the Danes, and I just prayed the Welsh would stay out of it. They claimed this land too, but in the long years that my men had ridden to keep a guard on Ceaster they had never interfered, but they had to be tempted now. Except the Welsh were Christians and most of their priests reluctantly sided with the Saxons because they all worshipped the same nailed god. But if the Danes and Saxons were killing each other then even the Welsh priests might see a god-given opportunity to plunder a swathe of rich land along Mercia’s western boundary. Perhaps. Perhaps not. But I had scouts riding ahead just in case a war-band of Welsh warriors came from the hills.

And I thought we had found such a band when one of the scouts rode back to say there was smoke in the sky. I did not expect smoke this far north. Cnut’s men would be ravaging southern Mercia, not the north, and a thick pillar of smoke suggested a hall was burning. The smoke was to our left, the east, and far enough away to be ignored, but I needed to know whether the Welsh had joined the chaos and so we crossed the stream and rode through thick oak woods towards the distant smear.

It was a farmstead that burned. There was no hall and no palisade, just a group of timber buildings in a clearing of the forest. Someone had settled here, had built a house and a barn, had cleared trees and raised cattle and grown barley, and now their small home was ablaze. We watched from the oaks. I could see eight or nine armed men, a couple of boys and two corpses. Some women and children were crouched under guard.

‘They’re not Welsh,’ Finan said.

‘You can tell?’

‘Not enough of them. They’re Danes.’

The men who carried spears and swords had long hair. That did not make them Danish, but most Danes wore their hair long and most Saxons preferred to keep it short and so I suspected Finan was right. ‘Take twenty men to the eastern side,’ I told him, ‘then show yourselves.’

‘Just show?’

‘Just show.’

I waited till the men at the burning farm saw Finan. The two boys immediately ran to fetch horses, and the prisoners, the women and children, were goaded to their feet. The Danes, if they were Danes, began rounding up seven cows, and they were still herding the animals as I led my men out of the trees and down the long slope of stubble. The nine men saw us, seemed to panic as they realised they were trapped between two forces, but then calmed as they saw no threat. We did not charge, we just rode slowly and they would see that many of us had long hair. They held onto their weapons and stayed close together, but decided against flight. That was a mistake.

I checked most of my men in the stubble and took just three across a small stream and so into the heat of the burning buildings. I beckoned for Finan’s men to join us, then stared into the flames of the burning granary. ‘A good day for a fire,’ I said in Danish.

‘It’s been a long time coming,’ one of the men answered in the same language.

‘Why’s that?’ I asked. I slid from the saddle, amazed at how stiff and sore I felt.

‘They don’t belong here,’ the man said, indicating the two corpses, both men, both gutted like deer, and both lying in pools of blood that the small rain slowly diluted.

‘You call me “lord”,’ I said mildly.

‘Yes, lord,’ the man said. He had only one eye, the other socket was scarred and weeping a trickle of pus.

‘And who are you?’ I asked.

They were indeed Danes, all of them older men and, reassured by the hammer hanging over my mail coat, they willingly explained that they came from settlements to the east and had resented the incursion of Saxons into their country. ‘They’re all Saxons,’ the man told me, indicating the women and children who crouched beside the stream. Those women and children had been crying, but now watched me in terrified silence.

‘They’re slaves now?’ I asked.

‘Yes, lord.’

‘Two more bodies over here,’ Finan called. ‘Old women.’

‘What use are old women?’ the man asked. One of his companions said something that I did not hear and the others all laughed.

‘What’s your name?’ I asked the one-eyed man.

‘Geitnir Kolfinnson.’

‘And you serve the Jarl Cnut?’

‘We do, lord.’

‘I’m on my way to join him,’ I explained, which was true, in a way. ‘Did he tell you to attack these folk?’

‘He wants the Saxon scum scoured away, lord.’

I looked at Geitnir Kolfinnson’s men, seeing grey beards and lined faces and missing teeth. ‘Your young men sailed with the jarl?’

‘They did, lord.’

‘And you’re to clean the Saxon scum out of the district?’

‘That’s what the jarl wants,’ Geitnir said.

‘You’ve done a thorough job,’ I said admiringly.

‘It’s a pleasure,’ Geitnir said. ‘I’ve been wanting to burn this place down for six years now.’

‘So why didn’t you do it before?’

He shrugged. ‘Jarl Cnut said we should let Æthelred of Mercia go to sleep.’

‘He didn’t want to provoke a war?’

‘Not then,’ Geitnir said, ‘but now?’

‘Now you can treat the Saxon scum as they should be treated.’

‘Not before time, lord, either.’

‘I’m Saxon scum,’ I said. There was silence. They were not sure they had heard me correctly. After all, they saw a man with long hair, wearing Thor’s hammer, his arms rich with the rings that Danes wear as battle trophies. I smiled at them. ‘I’m Saxon scum,’ I said again.

‘Lord?’ Geitnir asked, puzzled.

I turned to the two boys. ‘Who are you?’ I asked them. They were Geitnir’s grandsons, brought along to learn how to deal with Saxons. ‘I’m not going to kill either of you,’ I told the boys, ‘so now you’ll ride home and tell your mother that Uhtred of Bebbanburg is here. Say that name to me.’ They dutifully repeated my name. ‘And tell your mother I’m riding to Snotengaham to burn down Jarl Cnut’s hall. Where am I going?’

‘Snotengaham,’ one of them muttered. I doubted they had heard of the place, and I had no intention of going anywhere near the town, but I wanted to spread rumours to keep Cnut off balance.

‘Good boys,’ I said. ‘Now go.’ They hesitated, uncertain about the fate of their grandfather and his men. ‘Go!’ I shouted. ‘Before I decide to kill you too.’

They went, and then we killed the nine men. We took all their horses, except the two the boys had ridden in their panicked flight. I wanted rumours to start spreading in Danish Mercia, rumours that Uhtred had returned and was in a killing mood. Cnut believed that he had a free hand to do as he wished in Saxon Mercia, but within a day or two, once Brunna reached him and the rumours became louder, he would begin looking over his shoulder. He might even send men to Snotengaham where he kept one of his richer halls.

We left the Saxon women and children to fend for themselves and rode on south. We saw no more Danish bands and no Welsh warriors, and two days later we were in Saxon Mercia and the sky to the east and to the south was smirched with smoke, which meant that the Jarl Cnut was burning and plundering and killing.

And we rode on to Gleawecestre.

Gleawecestre was Æthelred’s stronghold. It was a burh and it lay in the western part of Mercia on the River Sæfern where it defended Æthelred’s territory from the marauding Welsh. That had been the burh’s original purpose, but it was large enough to provide a refuge for folk in the surrounding country whatever enemy came. Like Ceaster and like so many other places in Mercia and Wessex, its defences had been made by the Romans. And the Romans had built well.

The city lay on flat land, which is not the easiest to defend, but like Ceaster the wall at Gleawecestre was surrounded by a ditch fed by the nearby river, only this ditch was much deeper and wider. Inside the ditch was an earthen bank studded with pointed stakes on top of which was the Roman wall, built with stone, and twice the height of a man. That wall was strengthened by over thirty fighting towers. Æthelred had kept those defences in good repair, spending money on masons to rebuild the walls wherever time had crumbled them. Gleawecestre was his capital and home, and when he left to invade East Anglia, he had made sure that his possessions were well guarded.

It was the fyrd who had the task of defending Gleawecestre. The fyrd was the citizen army, men who normally worked the land or beat iron in smithies or sawed timber. They were not the professional warriors, but place the fyrd behind a flooded ditch and on top of a stout stone wall and they became a formidable foe. I had been fearful when I first heard that Cnut had sailed to the Sæfern, but as I rode south I decided that Gleawecestre and its inhabitants were probably safe. Æthelred had too much treasure in the city to leave it lightly defended, and he might have left as many as two thousand men inside the city’s walls. True, most of those men were the fyrd, but if they stayed behind the ramparts they would be hard to conquer.

Cnut must have been tempted to assault the city, but the Danes have never loved sieges. Men die on stone walls and drown in city ditches, and Cnut would want to keep his army strong for the battle he anticipated against Æthelred’s forces as they returned from East Anglia. Win that battle and only then might he set his men to attack a Roman city-fort. Yet by leaving Gleawecestre alone he ran the risk that the garrison might sally from the city to attack his rear, but Cnut knew the Saxon fyrd. They could defend, but were fragile in attack. I suspected he would have left two or three hundred men to watch the walls and keep the garrison quiet. Three hundred would be more than enough because one trained warrior was worth six or seven men of the fyrd, and besides, to preserve their supplies the men inside the city would have few horses and, if they were to attack Cnut, they would need horses. They were not there to attack Cnut, but to defend Æthelred’s lavish palace and treasury. Cnut’s bigger fear, I was sure, was that Edward of Wessex would march to relieve the city, but by now I suspected Cnut’s men were watching the Temes and ready to confront any West Saxon army that did appear. And that would not happen quickly. It would take days for Edward to summon his own fyrd to defend the West Saxon burhs and then assemble his army and decide what to do about the chaos to his north.

Or so I reckoned.

We rode through a waste land.

This was a rich land of good soil and fat sheep and heavy orchards, a land of plenty. Just days before there had been plump villages and noble halls and capacious granaries, but now there was smoke, ash and death. Cattle lay dead in the fields, their rotting flesh ripped by wolves, wild dogs and ravens. There were no people, except for the dead. The Danes who had caused this misery had ridden on to find more steadings to plunder, and the survivors, if there were any, would have fled to a burh. We rode in silence.

We followed a Roman road that ran straight across the desolation, the surviving marker stones counting down the miles to Gleawecestre. It was near a stone cut with the letters VII that the first Danes saw us. There were thirty of forty of them and they must have assumed we were also Danes because they rode towards us without fear. ‘Who are you?’ one of them called as they came nearer.

‘Your enemy,’ I said.

They curbed their horses. They were too close to turn and run safely, and perhaps they were puzzled by my answer. I checked my men and went forward alone. ‘Who are you?’ the man asked again. He was in mail, had a close-fitting helmet that framed a lean, dark face, and his arms were heavy with silver.

‘I have more men than you,’ I said, ‘so you give me your name first.’

He thought about that for a few heartbeats. My men were spreading out, making a line of heavily armed horsemen who were plainly ready to attack. The man shrugged. ‘I am Torfi Ottarson.’

‘You serve Cnut?’

‘Who doesn’t?’

‘I don’t.’

He glanced at the hammer at my neck. ‘Who are you?’ he demanded a third time.

‘I am called Uhtred of Bebbanburg,’ I said, and was rewarded with a look of sudden alarm. ‘You thought I was dead, Torfi Ottarson?’ I asked. ‘Perhaps I am. Who says the dead can’t return to take revenge on the living?’

He touched his own hammer, opened his mouth to speak, then said nothing. His men watched me.

‘So tell me, Torfi Ottarson,’ I said, ‘have you and your men come from Gleawecestre?’

‘Where there are many more men,’ he said defiantly.

‘You’re here to keep a watch on the city?’ I asked.

‘We do what we are told to do.’

‘Then I shall tell you what to do, Torfi Ottarson. Who commands your forces at Gleawecestre?’

He hesitated, then decided there was no harm in answering. ‘The Jarl Bjorgulf.’

It was not a name I knew, but presumably he was one of Cnut’s trusted men. ‘Then you will ride to the Jarl Bjorgulf now,’ I said, ‘and tell him that Uhtred of Bebbanburg is riding to Gleawecestre and that I will be allowed passage. He will let me pass.’

Torfi smiled grimly. ‘You have reputation, lord, but even you can’t defeat the men we have at Gleawecestre.’

‘We’re not going to fight,’ I said.

‘The Jarl Bjorgulf might wish otherwise?’

‘He probably will wish otherwise,’ I said, ‘but you will tell him more.’ I raised my hand and beckoned, and watched Torfi’s face as he saw Finan and three of my men bring Frigg and the twins into sight. ‘Do you know who they are?’ I asked Torfi. He just nodded. ‘So tell Jarl Bjorgulf that if he opposes me I shall kill the little girl first, then her mother, and the boy last.’ I smiled. ‘Jarl Cnut won’t be happy, will he? His wife and children slaughtered and all because the Jarl Bjorgulf wanted a fight?’

Torfi was staring at Frigg and the twins. I think he was finding it difficult to believe his eyes, but at last he found his tongue. ‘I shall tell the Jarl Bjorgulf,’ he said in a voice suffused with amazement, ‘and bring you his answer.’

‘Don’t trouble yourself,’ I said, ‘I know his answer. You ride and tell him that Uhtred of Bebbanburg is travelling to Gleawecestre and that he will not try to stop us. And think yourself lucky, Torfi.’

‘Lucky?’

‘You met me and lived. Now go.’

They turned and went. Their horses were much fresher than ours and they were soon so far ahead that we lost sight of them. I grinned at Finan. ‘We should enjoy this,’ I said.

‘Unless they want to be heroes and rescue them?’

‘They won’t,’ I said. I put the girl Sigril on Rolla’s horse and he rode with a drawn sword, while the boy, Cnut Cnutson, was on Swithun’s saddle, and Swithun, like Rolla, carried a naked blade. Frigg rode between Eldgrim and Kettil and seemed oblivious of what happened. She just smiled. In front of Frigg and her children, and leading our column, were two standard-bearers because, for the first time since leaving Bearddan Igge, we flew our flags, the prancing horse of Mercia and the wolf’s head of Bebbanburg.

And the Danes just watched us pass.

We came in sight of Gleawecestre and I saw how the buildings outside the high walls had been burned and cleared away so the defenders could see any enemy approach. The walls bristled with spear-points that caught the late afternoon sun. To my left were shelters put up by the Bjorgulf’s Danes, the men who guarded the city to make sure the fyrd did not attempt to sally out. There were maybe four hundred Danes, it was hard to count them because once we were in sight they rode either side of us, but always keeping a respectful distance. They did not even shout insults, but just watched us.

A mile or so from the city’s northern gate a heavy-set man with a red moustache turning grey spurred his horse towards us. He was accompanied by two younger men, and none carried a shield, just scabbarded swords. ‘You must be Jarl Bjorgulf,’ I greeted him.

‘I am.’

‘It’s good to see the sun, isn’t it?’ I said. ‘I can’t remember such a wet summer. I was beginning to think it would never stop raining.’

‘You would be wise,’ he said, ‘to give me the Jarl Cnut’s family.’

‘And whole fields of rye rotted by rain,’ I said. ‘I’ve never seen so many ruined crops.’

‘The Jarl Cnut will be merciful,’ Bjorgulf said.

‘You should be worried about my mercy, not his.’

‘If they’re hurt …’ he began.

‘Don’t be a fool,’ I said harshly, ‘of course they’ll be hurt. Unless you do exactly what I tell you to do.’

‘I …’ he began again.

‘Tomorrow morning, Bjorgulf,’ I said as if he had not tried to speak, ‘you will take your men away from here. You’ll ride east, up into the hills, and by midday you’ll all be gone.’

‘We …’

‘All of you, and your horses, up into the hills. And you’ll stay there, out of sight of the city, and if I see one single Dane anywhere close to Gleawecestre after midday I’ll rip the guts out of Cnut’s daughter and send them to you as a present.’ I smiled at him. ‘It was a pleasure talking to you, Bjorgulf. When you send a messenger to the jarl give him my greetings and tell him I have done the favour he asked of me.’

Bjorgulf frowned. ‘The jarl asked a favour of you?’

‘He did. He asked me to discover who hates him, and to find out who took his woman and children. The answer to both questions, Bjorgulf, is Uhtred of Bebbanburg. You can tell him that. Now go: you smell like a goat’s turd soaked in cat’s piss.’

And so we came to Gleawecestre, and the great northern gates were dragged open and the barricades inside were pulled away, and men cheered from the ramparts as my twin flags dipped to pass beneath the Roman arch. Horses’ hooves clattered loud on ancient stone and in the street beyond, waiting for us, was Osferth, who looked happier than I had ever seen him, and, next to him, was Bishop Wulfheard who had burned my home, and, towering above both men on a horse caparisoned in silver, was my woman of gold. Æthelflaed of Mercia.

‘I said I’d find you,’ I told her happily.

And so I had.

Whenever I had visited my cousin Æthelred, which I did rarely and reluctantly, it had been at his hall outside Gleawecestre, a hall I presumed was now turned to ash. I had rarely been inside the city, which was even more impressive than Ceaster. The palace was a towering building made of thin Roman bricks that had once been clad in marble sheets, though almost all of those had been burned for lime, leaving only a few rusted iron brackets that had once held the marble in place. The bricks were now hung with leather panels depicting various saints, among them Saint Oswald being hacked down by a vicious-looking brute who snarled with bloodstained teeth while Oswald displayed a vacuous smile as if he welcomed death. What was ironic about the picture was that the vicious-looking brute was Penda, a Mercian, and the stupid-looking victim was a Northumbrian who had been an enemy of Mercia, but there is no point in looking for sense among Christians. Oswald was now venerated by his enemies and a Mercian army had crossed Britain to find his bones.

The floor of the hall was one of the intricate Roman tiled floors, this one depicting warriors hailing a chieftain who stood in a chariot being pulled by two swans and a fish. Maybe life was different in those days. Great pillars held up an arched roof on which the remnants of plaster still showed, those remnants covered with paintings that could just be discerned among the water-stains, while the far end of the hall had a timber dais on which my cousin had placed a throne draped in scarlet cloth. A second lower throne was presumably for his new woman who so desperately wanted to be a queen. I kicked that seat off the dais and sat in the scarlet chair and looked down on the city’s leaders. Those men, both church and laymen, stood on the picture of the chariot and looked sheepish. ‘You’re fools,’ I snarled. ‘You are all arse-licking, piss-dribbling, nose-picking fools.’

I was determined to enjoy myself.

There must have been two score of Mercians in the hall, all ealdormen, priests or thegns, the men left to guard Gleawecestre while Æthelred sought glory in East Anglia. Æthelflaed was there too, but my men surrounded her, separating her from the other Mercians. She was not the only woman in the hall. My daughter Stiorra, who lived in Æthelflaed’s household, was standing by one of the pillars, and the sight of her long, serious and beautiful face brought a sudden sharp memory of her mother. Next to her was another girl, as tall as Stiorra, but fair where my daughter was dark, and she seemed familiar, but I could not place her. I gave her a long hard look, more on account of her undeniable prettiness than to try to provoke my memory, but I still could not identify her, and so turned to the body of the hall. ‘And which of you,’ I demanded, ‘has command of the city’s garrison?’

There was a pause. Finally Bishop Wulfheard took a pace forward and cleared his throat. ‘I do,’ he said.

‘You!’ I said, sounding shocked.

‘The Lord Æthelred entrusted the city’s safety to me,’ he said defensively.

I stared at him. Let the silence stretch. ‘Is there a church here?’ I asked at last.

‘Of course.’

‘Then tomorrow I’ll celebrate mass,’ I said, ‘and I’ll preach a sermon. I can hand out stale bread and bad advice as well as anyone, can’t I?’ There was silence, except for a girlish giggle. Æthelflaed turned sharply to silence the sound, which came from the tall, fair, pretty girl standing next to my daughter. I recognised her then because she had ever been a light-headed, flippant creature. She was Æthelflaed’s daughter, Ælfwynn, whom I still thought of as a child, but she was a child no longer. I winked at her, which only made her giggle again.

‘Why would Æthelred put a bishop in charge of a garrison?’ I asked, turning my attention back to Bishop Wulfheard. ‘Have you ever fought in a battle? I know you burned down my barns, but that isn’t a battle, you stinking piece of rat-gristle. A battle is the shield wall. It’s smelling your enemy’s breath while he tries to disembowel you with an axe, it’s blood and shit and screams and pain and terror. It’s trampling in your friends’ guts as enemies butcher them. It’s men clenching their teeth so hard they shatter them. Have you ever been in a battle?’ He said nothing, just looked indignant. ‘I asked you a question!’ I shouted at him.

‘No,’ he admitted.

‘Then you’re not fit to be in charge of the garrison,’ I said.

‘The Lord Æthelred …’ he began.

‘Is pissing his breeches in East Anglia,’ I said, ‘and wondering how he’ll ever get home again. And he only put you in charge because you’re a grovelling lickspittle arsehole whom he trusted, just as he trusted Haesten. It was Haesten who assured you he’d captured Cnut’s family, yes?’

A few men muttered assent. The bishop said nothing.

‘Haesten,’ I said, ‘is a treacherous piece of slime, and he deceived you. He always served Cnut, but you all believed him because your shit-brained priests assured you that God was on your side. Well, he is now. He sent me, and I brought you Cnut’s wife and children, and I am also angry.’

I stood on those last four words, stepped off the dais and stalked towards Wulfheard. ‘I am angry,’ I said again, ‘because you burned my buildings. You tried to get that mob to kill me. You said any man who killed me would earn the grace of God. Do you remember that, you rancid piece of rat-dropping?’

Wulfheard said nothing.

‘You called me an abomination,’ I said. ‘Do you remember?’ I pulled Serpent-Breath from her sheath. She made a rasping noise, surprisingly loud, as her long blade scraped through the scabbard’s throat. Wulfheard made a small scared noise and stepped back towards the protection of four priests who were evidently his followers, but I did not threaten him, I just reversed the sword and thrust the hilt towards him. ‘There, you toad-fart,’ I said, ‘earn the grace of God by killing a pagan abomination.’ He stared at me puzzled. ‘Kill me, you bile-brained slug,’ I said.

‘I …’ he began, then faltered and took another backwards step.

I followed him, and one of the priests, a young man, moved to stop me. ‘Touch me,’ I warned him, ‘and I’ll spill your guts across the floor. I’m the priest-killer, remember? I’m an outcast of God. I’m an abomination. I’m the man you hate. I kill priests the way other men swat wasps. I am Uhtred.’ I looked back to Wulfheard and held the sword to him again. ‘So, you spavined weasel,’ I challenged him, ‘do you have the belly to kill me?’ He shook his head and still said nothing. ‘I’m the man who killed the Abbot Wihtred,’ I said to him, ‘and you cursed me for that. So why don’t you kill me?’ I waited, watching the fear on the bishop’s face, and that was the moment I remembered the twins’ strange reaction when Father Wissian had come into the great chamber at Ceaster. I turned towards Æthelflaed. ‘You told me the Abbot Wihtred came from Northumbria?’

‘He did.’

‘And he suddenly appeared preaching about Saint Oswald?’ I asked.

‘The blessed Saint Oswald was a Northumbrian,’ the bishop put in as if that might placate me.

‘I know who he was!’ I snarled. ‘And did it occur to any of you that Cnut persuaded Abbot Wihtred to come south? Cnut rules in Northumbria, he wanted the Mercian army lured to East Anglia, and so he drew them there with promises of a dead saint’s miraculous corpse. Wihtred was his man! His children called him uncle.’ I did not know if all that was true, of course, but it seemed very likely. Cnut had been clever. ‘You’re fools, all of you!’ I thrust the sword at Wulfheard again. ‘Kill me, you slug-turd,’ I said, but he just shook his head. ‘Then you will pay me,’ I said, ‘for the damage you did at Fagranforda. You will pay me in gold and silver and I shall rebuild my halls and my barns and my cowsheds at your expense. You are going to repay me, aren’t you?’

He nodded. He had little choice.

‘Good!’ I said cheerfully. I slammed Serpent-Breath back into her scabbard, and strode back to the dais. ‘My Lady Æthelflaed,’ I said very formally.

‘My Lord Uhtred,’ she answered just as formally.

‘Who should command here?’

She hesitated, looking at the Mercians. ‘Merewalh is as good as anyone,’ she said.

‘What about you?’ I asked her. ‘Why don’t you command?’

‘Because I go where you go,’ she said firmly. The men in the room stirred uncomfortably, but none spoke. I thought about contradicting her, then decided it was best not to waste my breath.

‘Merewalh,’ I said instead, ‘you’re in charge of the garrison. I doubt Cnut will attack you because I intend to lure him northwards, but I could be wrong. How many trained warriors are in the city?’

‘A hundred and forty-six,’ Æthelflaed answered, ‘most of them mine. Some used to be yours.’

‘They’ll all be riding with me,’ I said. ‘Merewalh, you can keep ten of your men, the rest go with me. And I might send for you when I know the city is safe because I’d hate for you to miss the battle. It’s going to be a vicious one. Bishop! Would you like to fight the pagans?’

Wulfheard just stared at me. He was doubtless praying that his nailed god would send a lightning strike to shrivel me, but the nailed god did not oblige.

‘So let me tell you what is happening,’ I said, pacing the dais as I spoke. ‘The Jarl Cnut has brought over four thousand men to Mercia. He’s destroying Mercia, burning and killing, and Æthelred,’ I deliberately did not call him Lord Æthelred, ‘has to come back to stop the destruction. How many men does Æthelred have?’

‘Fifteen hundred,’ someone muttered.

‘And if he doesn’t come back,’ I went on, ‘Cnut will hunt him down in East Anglia. That’s probably what Cnut is doing now. He’s hunting Æthelred and hopes to destroy him before the West Saxons come north. So our job is to pull Cnut away from Æthelred and keep him busy while the West Saxons muster their army and march to join Æthelred. How many men can Edward bring?’ I asked Osferth.

‘Between three and four thousand,’ he said.

‘Good!’ I smiled. ‘We’ll outnumber Cnut and we’ll rip his guts out and feed them to the dogs.’

Ealdorman Deogol, a slow-witted man who held land just north of Gleawecestre, frowned at me. ‘You’ll lead men north?’

‘I will.’

‘And take almost all the trained warriors with you,’ he said accusingly.

‘I will,’ I said.

‘But there are Danes ringing the city,’ he said plaintively.

‘I got into the city,’ I said, ‘and I can get out.’

‘And if they see the trained warriors leave,’ his voice was rising, ‘what’s to stop them attacking?’

‘Oh, they’re leaving tomorrow,’ I said, ‘didn’t I tell you that? They’re leaving, and we’re going to burn their ships.’

‘They’re leaving?’ Deogol asked incredulously.

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘they’re leaving.’

And I hoped I was right.

‘You were hard on Bishop Wulfheard,’ Æthelflaed said to me that night. We were in bed. I assumed it was her husband’s bed and I did not care. ‘You were very hard on him,’ she said.

‘Not hard enough.’

‘He’s a good man.’

‘He’s an earsling,’ I said. She sighed. ‘Ælfwynn’s grown into a pretty girl,’ I went on.

‘She has a head filled with feathers,’ her mother said harshly.

‘But very pretty feathers.’

‘And she knows that,’ Æthelflaed said, ‘and she behaves like a fool. I should have given birth to sons.’

‘I’ve always liked Ælfwynn.’

‘You like all pretty girls,’ she said disapprovingly.

‘I do, yes, but you’re the one I love.’

‘And Sigunn, and a half-dozen others.’

‘Only half a dozen?’

She pinched me for that. ‘Frigg is pretty.’

‘Frigg,’ I said, ‘is beautiful beyond words.’

She thought about that, then gave a grudging nod. ‘Yes, she is. And Cnut will come for her?’

‘He’ll come for me.’

‘You’re such a humble man.’

‘I’ve wounded his pride. He’ll come.’

‘Men and their pride.’

‘You want me to be humble?’

‘I might as well hope to see the moon turn somersaults,’ she said. She tilted her head and kissed my cheek. ‘Osferth is in love,’ she said, ‘it’s rather touching.’

‘With Ingulfrid?’

‘I’d like to meet her,’ Æthelflaed said.

‘She’s clever,’ I said, ‘very clever.’

‘So is Osferth, and he deserves someone clever.’

‘I’m sending him back to your brother,’ I told her. Osferth had come north after taking his message to Edward, and Edward had sent him on to Gleawecestre to order Æthelflaed back to Wessex, a command she had predictably ignored. Osferth had arrived in Gleawecestre just hours before the Danes landed south of the city, and now he needed to go back to spur the West Saxons to haste. ‘Is your brother mustering his army?’

‘So Osferth says.’

‘But will he bring it north?’ I wondered aloud.

‘He has to,’ Æthelflaed said bleakly.

‘I’ll tell Osferth to kick Edward’s arse,’ I said.

‘Osferth will do no such thing,’ she said, ‘and he’ll be glad to go back to Wessex. He left his lady in Wintanceaster.’

‘And I left mine in Gleawecestre,’ I said.

‘I knew you’d come back.’ She stirred beside me, a small hand stroking my chest.

‘I thought about joining Cnut,’ I told her.

‘No, you didn’t.’

‘He wanted me to be an ally,’ I said, ‘but instead I have to kill him.’ I thought of Ice-Spite, Cnut’s sword, and of his famed skill, and felt a shiver in the night.

‘You will.’

‘I will.’ I wondered whether age had slowed Cnut. Had it slowed me?

‘What will you do with the boy?’

‘Ingulfrid’s son? Sell him back to his father when I’ve settled Cnut.’

‘Osferth said you very nearly captured Bebbanburg.’

‘Nearly isn’t enough.’

‘No, I suppose not. What would you have done if you’d succeeded? Stayed there?’

‘And never left,’ I said.

‘And me?’

‘I’d have sent for you.’

‘I belong here. I’m a Mercian now.’

‘There won’t be a Mercia,’ I said truthfully, ‘until we’ve killed Cnut.’

She lay in silence for a long time. ‘What if he wins?’ she asked after that long silence.

‘Then a thousand ships will come from the north to join him, and men will come from Frisia, and every Northman who wants land will bring a sword, and they’ll cross the Temes.’

‘And there’ll be no Wessex,’ she said.

‘No Wessex,’ I said, ‘and no Englaland.’

How odd that name sounds. It was her father’s dream. To make a country called Englaland. Englaland. I fell asleep.